Many businesses purchase personal printers to generate custom forms which are used in their daily operations. Examples of such forms might include a bank's application for an automobile loan, a department store's application for a store credit card, or a government office or agency's description of the types and prices of services offered by the office or agency. Today, businesses using printers to generate these custom forms are required to connect a host computer such as a personal computer to the printer each time the form is generated.
The involvement of the host computer in the process of generating the form can vary from setup to setup. In the simplest of setups, the form data is stored in the printer and the host is required to issue the appropriate commands to select a particular form and instruct the printer to print the form. Other setups require that the form data be stored on the host. In this type of setup, the host must select a form, and send the form data to the printer; the printer does not distinguish this type of print job from other print jobs sent by the host.
In an existing, prior art printer sold by the assignee of this application as the 4037 Page Printer, the printer has what is termed the "Retail" mode. In this mode the printer is placed in a state at which the printing of a single, predetermined document is the only printing function which is performed. The document constitutes a descriptive brochure. Thus, prospective customers in a retail sales environment can activate the printing of only that form by an entry at the control panel of the printer stating "Press any key for one page demo". Printing of the brochure takes a long time, since the brochure page was complex and each printing of the brochure required the final bit map to be prepared prior to printing. When in the Retail mode, the printer enters the Retail mode each subsequent time it is turned on. The Retail mode is activated by the special entry of pressing and holding a predetermined key during turn on. The same special entry of pressing and holding the predetermined key during turn on returns the printer to normal printing mode. When in the Retail mode the operator cannot access normal printer functions, such as select menu items on the panel or send print data from a host computer.
In an existing, prior art printer sold since early 1994 by the assignee of this application as the 4039 plus laser printer, individual forms can be printed, each after multiple entries to the control panel. At least four buttons entries on the control panel are pressed to display on the control panel a list of forms (specifically, these entries are "Menu", "Tests", "More" and "Print Demo"). Then a print key is depressed to print the selected form. The selected form is only then formatted to a bit map. After it is printed, the control panel is returned to the normal printing state and printing of the same or another form required the multiple key entries and the formatting of the document printed.
This invention is operative in a system in which a page description is received in a high level printer language. Such printer language are discussed in some detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,222,200 to Callister et al, entitled Automatic Printer Data Stream Language Determination, and assigned to the assignee of this invention.
This invention employs the storing of forms in flash memory. Such an operation is a subject of U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,621 to Brown III et al, entitled Printer With Flash Memory, and assigned to the assignee of this invention.